Precast and prestressed concrete products come in many forms. These products include precast rooms such as jail cells and road and building products such as I-beams, double tees, and bridge segments.
In the normal course of a manufacturing or construction process, these precast and prestressed products must be moved several times. At a minimum, the products are moved from the mold to storage area for curing and then from storage to a transportation vehicle for shipping.
These precast and prestressed products usually have a lifting means integrally placed on them. These lifting means can be wire rope loops, inserts for attaching lifting devices, or other lifting means. The actual lifting and moving of the product is typically accomplished by the use of some type of lifting vehicle such as a gantry crane or boom crane.
The products to be lifted usually have multiple lift points and the lifting vehicle often uses a spreader bar with multiple lift points to connect to the product to be lifted. The spreader bar also has crane lift points that are used to connect the spreader bar to the lifting vehicle.
The actual connection of the product to be lifted to the spreader bar is accomplished with a variety of devices such as slings, hooks, shackles, specialized attaching devices, etc. The connections are typically made by yard personnel manually connecting the spreader lifting devices to the pick points on the product. This process often involves manually positioning variable position lifting points on the spreader. This manual process is time consuming and sometimes hazardous when yard personnel must climb on stacks of stored products to make the connections. Given these problems, an automatic and remotely controlled device that alleviates and eliminates the steps and problems previously mentioned would be an important improvement in the art.